September 25, 2010

That was a horribly frustrating game to watch as a Spurs fan – yet again we struggle to break down a team that defends deep and in numbers, and we looked slightly vulnerable on the break (as with the Wigan game).

With Crouch totally ineffective, we were badly lacking in the final third, and bar a brilliant Modric volley, a couple of efforts from Jenas and van der Vaart, and Huddlestone’s poor miss, we didn’t create enough chances. We need one of our forwards to step up and find some form.

West Ham’s goal came from one of their 14 corners – they were shooting from anywhere, and enjoying the rewards, with Cudicini generally rooted to his line at most dead ball situations (we probably miss Gomes most when defending set pieces).

On this occasion, it’s Corluka marking Piquionne, and he gets rather caught under the flight of the ball, whilst Piquionne gets a bit of a run on him.

Corluka and Piquionne are both positioned centrally. Notice that we have Modric on the near post, but nobody on the far.

Piquionne starts to make a run, and then checks – in this time, Corluka has stood still, trusting his standing jump.

Piquionne gets up well, helped by a slight run; this gives him the aerial advantage over Corluka.

He angles the ball well into the corner which is unguarded – whether that was intentional or otherwise, it was sloppy.

With Bale forced to play at left back in Assou-Ekotto’s absence, and Lennon lacking form and confidence, we lacked width for the majority of the game. Redknapp’s changes did nothing to solve this, with Keane coming on for Lennon, and then Pavlyuchenko and Giovani replacing van der Vaart (who had moved wide), and Crouch.

It’s easy to say in hindsight, but I think it would have made more sense to switch to three at the back – Hutton right, Corluka central, and Bassong left, giving Bale freedom to get forward on the left.

The ‘dark-side’of being a Spurs fan.. had a bad feeling about this one today, why ? Cos this season we have lost against Wigan, Arsenal , young boys and conceeded a big lead albeit against genuine opposition Bremen and now west ham. Something is not right and maybe bringing in vdv so inadvertently has rocked our balance a bit. Maybe it’s natural to bed allow bedding in time, but my fear comes from how S*** we have looked compared to last season. Still onwards and upwards and all that…COYS

outplayed??i think he needs to watch the game again all i saw was west ham playin endless long balls forward or down the sounds for the hard workin forward who in fairness bullied are back 2.the 2nd half was spent in west hams half but created very little and west ham countered in very few numbers.west ham are a poor team which makes the defeat harder to take.but spurs are looking very powder puff up front probably due to lennons inability to beat an egg right now.champions league is not the priority, the league is. if we want to qualify each year performances or lack of creativity like today is not acceptable

Anonymous @ 18:05 – I don’t disagree that for the first half hour or so we were totally outplayed by a neat, tidy, high-tempo West Ham side, that were prepared to take shots on. After that, it was all hands to the pump, with 9 or 10 men mainly behind the ball, and long balls down the channels at every opportunity. I’m not knocking it, I’d have happily swapped our displays!